Tag: Starbucks

In the world of retail it’s pretty rare that brands get into trouble over night–much less over a matter of months or even years.

What will turn out to be the deathblow for Sears started with Walmart in the 1980’s, and was followed by Home Depot, Lowes and Best Buy chipping away at Sears core tools and appliance business as these insurgents opened new stores and improved their offerings over many, many years.

The ability to deliver books, music and other forms of entertainment digitally (or shipped directly to the consumer) just didn’t pop up one day. Blockbuster, Borders and Barnes & Noble had years to respond. They just didn’t in any especially powerful way.

Starbucks initiated its rapid store growth more than 20 years ago. And the broader reinvention of the retail coffee business by local independents, along with forays by Keurig, Nespresso and others, is hardly a recent phenomenon. Yet it’s hard to point to anything particularly innovative that industry leaders Folger’s and Maxwell House have done during this extended period, despite their brands continuing to lose sales and relevance.

As Macy’s, JC Penney, Dillards and other traditional department store players garner lots of negative press about their current struggles, we should remember that the department store sector has lost relative market share for more than two decades. Their problems are not simply a function of the growth of e-commerce. And even if they were, the best in class players were investing heavily in e-commerce–think Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom–more than 15 years ago.

Crises created by unforeseen events are one thing. Slow motion crises only reveal that we took our eyes off the ball, were too afraid to act or both.

The way to avoid a retail slow motion crisis is as follows:

Understand where customer value is being created on a go forward basis

Dissect your most valuable customer segments to understand where your brand is vulnerable and where you have potential leverage

Figure out where you can compete by modifying your core business and where you need to innovate outside of your core

Don’t be afraid to compete with yourself

Consider acquistions as way to build new capabilities quickly

Embrace a culture of experimentation

Spend more time doing, than studying.

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I’m fascinated by our capacity to get stuck, the many ways we craft a narrative in a vain attempt to avoid change, the stories we buy into as we hope to keep above the fray. Far too often, the power of denial seems endemic to individuals and organizations alike.

Go back to the 80’s and 90’s and ponder how a slew of successful retailers mostly did nothing while Walmart, Home Depot, Best Buy–and a host of innovative discount mass merchandisers and category killers–moved across the country opening new stores and evolving their concepts to completely redefine industry segments. Somehow it took many years for the old regime to realize what was going on and how much market share was being shed. For many, any acceptance and action came far too late (RIP, Caldor, Montgomery Ward, et al).

Witness how digital delivery of books, music and other forms of entertainment came into prominence while Blockbuster, Borders and Barnes & Noble spent years mostly doing nothing of any consequence. Two of them are now gone and one is holding on for dear life.

Starbucks revolution of the coffee business hardly occurred overnight. But if you were the brand manager of Folger’s or Maxwell House you apparently were caught unawares.

Consider how consumer behavior has been shifting strongly toward online shopping and the utilization of shopping data through digital channels for well over a decade. Yet many companies are seemingly just now waking up to this reality. And by the way, Amazon didn’t just spring out of nowhere. They will celebrate their 22nd anniversary this summer.

And lastly, examine how the elite players of the luxury industry have largely resisted embracing e-commerce–and most things digital–believing that somehow they were immune to the inexorable forces of consumer desires and preferences. Apparently they failed to notice, as just one example, Neiman Marcus’ rise to having 30% of their sales come from online and more than 60% of physical store sales now being influenced by digital channels.

More often than we care to admit, the bullet’s been fired, it just hasn’t hit us yet.

The good news is that while the pace of change is increasing in retail, we have a lot more time to react than we do in a gunfight.

The bad news is that the impact can be just as deadly if we are not prepared.